When commuters pull a fast one...

MUMBAI: Saying no to autos and cabs, even for a day, may seem like a movement Gandhiji would have approved of. But apart from today's Internet-driven revenge called Meter Jam, which hopefully fares better than Batti Bandh did against global warming, the tyranny of these public transport services have otherwise inspired daily commuters to battle in ways that may not always pass muster with the Mahatma.
Every day, while returning from work around midnight, when graphic designer Rakshit Shetty, would ask the auto drivers near Kandivli station if they would go to Charkhop, they would all refuse. They also gave the same excuses about "going to fill gas'' or "leaving for home''. So, one day, Shetty decided to use his mimicry skills to his advantage. The six-foot tall designer assumed a self-important facial expression, a deep voice and a condescending tone in the vicinity of the auto drivers. He even played a ringtone on his phone and pretended to receive a call, within the earshot of one of them. "What happened to that case?'' Shetty muttered into the phone in Marathi, and misled the driver into thinking he were a cop in plain clothes. "He immediately offered me a ride,'' says Shetty, for whom the strategy became a daily practice. "Sometimes they would refuse to charge me, but I would pay, saying I didn't want any favours,'' says Shetty, admitting that he did "exempt myself from night charge sometimes''.
Another media professional swears by the success ratio of faking your identity. She pretends to be "from the RTO'', whenever an auto driver refuses or overcharges. This game of lies, which some commuters play, is only a legitimate manifestation of their daily ire. Once, a woman, who was frustrated by the repeated refusals to her "Vaishali Nagar, Mulund'' request, screamed, "Will you take me to Dubai then?''
Sion-based writer Sriram Narayanan, says how on two occasions, when cabbies refused him a ride, he confiscated their keys and threatened to hand them over to the nearest police station. It worked. "If we accept them saying no, the problem is bound to continue. We should not accept no for an answer,'' he says, adding that sitting in the cab, and in extreme cases, confiscating keys can help this cause.
Faking destinations seems to be another tactic. Yaman Banerjee of Rotaract club of Thane Central has often come across rickshaw-wallahs who look at her as if she just asked for a ride to the moon instead of Majiwada, where she stays. In such cases, she tries faking the destination. When she needs to go to Ram Maruti Road, where auto drivers refuse to go, she says, "I have to go to Panchpakhadi''. "And then, I get off mid-way saying there is some emergency!'' Banerjee laughs.
But not all ploys are successful. A media professional recently tried dropping names in front of a cabbie. "I know Harish Baijal,'' she said, referring to former DCP (traffic). "Who is he?'' the cabbie quipped, before speeding away.